402 KESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



Sacramento, extending from first to sixth, and from II to L 

 streets. The houses and stores here are mostly built of brick, 

 one or two stories high. The streets are gravelled or planked ; 

 the side-walks are planked or paved with brick, and covered 

 with awnings to give protection against the sun. In those 

 parts of the town used for dwellings, the houses are chiefly of 

 wood, neatly painted, and surrounded by gardens, and the 

 streets are lined with shade-trees, such as cottonwood, willow, 

 sycamore, elm, and locust. There are water-works and gas- 

 works. The water is pumped up from tlie Sacramento River, 

 which is so turbid, even at its lowest stage, that six inches of 

 mud are deposited monthly in the reservoir. The gas is made 

 from imported coal. A railroad twenty miles long connects 

 Sacramento with Folsom, which is connected with Lincoln by 

 another road of about the same length. A steamboat leaves 

 Sacramento daily at two p. m. for San Francisco ; thrice a 

 Aveek, starting in the morning, for Marysville ; and at least 

 thrice a week for Red Bluff. Stages run daily to Marysville, 

 Auburn, Placerville, Coloma, Jackson, Stockton, and Fairfield. 

 The first settlement by white men on the site of Sacramento 

 was made in 1839, by John A. Sutter, a Swiss by birth, who, 

 after having served as a captain in the body-guard of Charles 

 X. of France, came to the United States, where he was Ameri- 

 canized. He afterwards came to California and was admitted 

 to Mexican citizenship. He obtained a grant of eleven square 

 leagues of land on the eastern bank of the Sacramento River, 

 and under that grant the title to the site of Sacramento City is 

 now held. In 1841 he built some adobe buildings, which he 

 dignified with the title of New Helvetia, while to the Ameri- 

 cans it was generally known as " Sutter's Fort." It was, for 

 a long time, the only place where white men had a permanent 

 foothold in the Sacramento basin ; and it was a place of im- 

 portance, as the first point where the American trappers, 

 travellers, and immigrants, entering the territory from the 

 eastward, could obtain provisions, ammunition, and horses, 

 and rest secure acrainst Indians. Sutter treated all comers 



